Burly bleak plumes roll out aloft corn
Where the dragon fell post spin and ditch
A wretched hulk of ruin splintered and worn
Amongst endless blanch green fields which

Arc with a gust and apart where he treads,
Dragging his silk cape afar from flame
Clueless and concussed to a near house he heads
With a tattered scarf that constricts yet ***** about his mane

Black fists of cloud had boomed around him as they soared
His beast spat metal fire whilst the pale sky turned dull
The zipping ballet of warfare smiled throughout as motors roared
Gnashing its teeth and making forgotten martyrs of them all

Shuddering not from demise rather conflict as a whole
He is as content with death as he is to survive
Just not burn the world and condemn his soul
A horror; men of rule seem keen to keep alive

An agrarian self-dines rancorous and crocked
Half sat, improperly perched from where he was shot
Monsters had come for him once before this day
They took his spouse and his daughter and then took them away

He can hear but does not hark to the battle aloft
It is now like the rain and the trees in a gust
But to the boom and the shake he stands with a cough
And as he cites the invader he sees he must do what he must

The grower limps out with a Chassepot in his arms
As the airman’s hands reach up and he falls to his knees
With beads on his brow the man pleads with met palms
The crofter sees naught but a Prussian blue monster disease

The pilot knows his death, ‘Ich bin nicht sicher, wo ich will gehen?”
The old Frenchman just sniggers as he thinks never again
With the rifle’s slug now spent and the horror sent back to his hell
The farmer mumbles to himself, ‘je dois me chercher une pelle,”